New at laptop overclocking, need detailed help

[Theus]

I want to overclock (Please tell me if what I should actually do is underclock) my Acer aspire 5535 due to FPS problems in World of Warcraft, below you will find CPU-Z pics

 

http://img42.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=cpuzpic1.jpg

 

Thanks in advance for any clear and detailed information and help,

Theus

Edited November 19, 2009 by Theus

[wevsspot]

Theus,

 

Your laptop actually "underclocks" itself at idle. Through a combination of BIOS programming and OS interface the machine knows when it is at an idle condition and reduces your cpu multiplier and vcore in order to reduce heat and energy consumption.

 

On the other side of the coin, I don't advise overclocking your laptop. Laptops just don't have enough air flow and cooling in order to keep things from dying inside a laptop chassis.

 

Additionally, the factory BIOS features on most laptops don't include the ability to change the parameters of the items you would need to change in order to overclock. So you would be stuck trying to use some Windows based utility to overclock your machine. I don't advise that either.

 

Can you run WOW at a lower resolution, or turn off/turn down AA-AF and other eye candy?

[Theus]

Nah, I got all the minimum resolutions and graphic settings yet I go even under 1 FPS when there are too many gameobjects, players and NPC's all together (25man Raids and AoE for those who understand that) and I thought a little overclocking could help with that, also I do have an external, USB connected fan, which I bought as my old computer used to crash due to over-heating and I decided to put it under this one aswell when I got it although I don't see myself need it right now.

Edited November 19, 2009 by Theus

[MasterRex862]

Your laptop could be under-clocking for a couple of blatant reasons.

• You have set the OS to use as little power as possible to extend battery life.
  
• Overheating
  

 

If I read correctly, the laptop you're using employs AMD's 780G chipset. That means you have an HD3200 mobile graphics chipset - more than enough to run WoW. I have reason to believe the only reason you're experiencing such frame rate stutter is due to Windows environment variables (read: power options).

 

Try mulling this over.

[Theus]

None of these two anyways, as I haven't had any overheating on this one and I set high processor speed in battery settings aswell as everything else that could help

[MasterRex862]

Were you ever able to run WoW fluently?

 

EDIT:

If your laptop isn't overheating and you have correctly addressed the power options, there isn't a reason for the under-clocking (AMD Cool n' Quiet, you've done it again!). I suggest you run Notebook Hardware Control to verify that you are not experiencing heat related issues. You may also change your CPU frequency with this application to 'overclock', though I'd recommend against exceeding the stock speed of your Athlon X2 QL-60 - That's 1.9GHz.

Edited November 19, 2009 by MasterRex862

[Theus]

WoW worked at an above than average rate when I first got this computer 3 months ago. And I ran the program you stated, what my average CPU temp looks like:

(Although that is with the fan turned on...) http://yfrog.com/09tempdxj

 

And it states my CPU clock is at 1895MHz

 

EDIT: Also, I seem to be unable to change the CPU speed etc, I get errors along the lines of "Error on changing the CPU speed"

Edited November 19, 2009 by Theus

[DLS2008]

I would highly advise against overclocking your laptop. They're just not built to handle the stress. I'm destroying my Dell XPS M1730 by overclocking and heavy load. One of my hard drives just died and I get artifacts while gaming. That's after just over a year of owning the thing. I had it running at 3.0GHz with 100% load on the CPU and GPU. This was done with Folding @ Home and saw heat loads in the mid-70C range 24/7. This was run for about 9 months in this manner, and the laptop is beginning to show signs of heat degradation. I'm getting things taken care of by Dell, but it's still a pain.

 

Just don't do it.

 

Try updating drivers and patches.

[XxHellxRaizerxX]

your specs should easily play WoW on lowest settings.. Sounds like a software issue. Reinstall drivers or update if you haven't and possibly try reinstalling the game.

[CowKing]

your specs should easily play WoW on lowest settings.. Sounds like a software issue. Reinstall drivers or update if you haven't and possibly try reinstalling the game.

[tkrow21]

Is a reformat possible? A lot of laptops have handy restore utilities that make it much easier to do the formatting.

[MasterRex862]

Now we're getting somewhere. Why do you seem to think 76C is an acceptable temperature? Your processor is overheating. I'm willing to bet the stock thermal pad dried up under duress. It's also possible that your fan ducting is filled with dust or pet hair.

Edited November 20, 2009 by MasterRex862